Network-provided content, such as web pages which can include media content, videos, pictures, music, and the like, are typically served to end users via networked computer systems. End user requests for the network content are processed and the content is responsively provided over various network links. These networked computer systems can include origin or hosting servers which originally host network content, such as web servers for hosting a news website. However, these computer systems of individual content origins or hosts can become overloaded and slow due to frequent requests of content by end users.
Content delivery networks have been developed which add a layer of caching between original servers of the content providers and the end users. The content delivery networks typically have one or more cache nodes distributed across a large geographic region to provide faster and lower latency access to the content for the end users. When end users request content, such as a web page, which is handled through a cache node, the cache node is configured to respond to the end user requests instead of the origin servers. In this manner, a cache node can act as a proxy or cache for the content origin servers. Content of the origin servers can be cached into the cache nodes, and can be pre-cached in the cache nodes from origin servers when the content has not yet been cached.
To reach the network content, end user devices typically first resolve domain name information before requesting content from a particular cache node. Domain name resolution is typically handled by top-level domain name system (DNS) servers which may delegate resolution to additional subordinate DNS servers. These DNS servers translate user-facing domain names into numerical network addresses so that a request for content can be issued by an end user device for the content. However, the limited number and distribution of DNS servers can add latencies and slowdowns into the domain name resolution process as well as the entire content request process.